“This… How is that even possible!?”
Realizing that the handwriting that I saw had an unthinkable connection, I quickly turned.
“How do I even know what Yuuna-san handwriting looks like…?”
“Huh, why did I just call her Yuuna-san? Shouldn’t I be calling her Irie-san?”
With those thoughts, came a sudden blur. I saw Irie-san talking to me in what seemed like a distant yet recent memory.
“H-Huh…?” [Kaitou]
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・In the interior of a carriage ・
“Where are we heading next?” [Irie]
“Sorry, I don’t know” [?]
“We’re on track at the very least. So does it even matter?” [Akira]
“Let’s just focus on reaching our current destination first, the damage those monsters are doing is increasing by the moment.” [Kaitou]
“Yes, you’re right” [Irie]
“Sure whatever you say” [Akira]
“We’ll be reaching our destination soon. Everyone get ready.” [?]
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“What was that?!” [Kaitou]
I suddenly stood up out of reflex, placing my hands on the desk and sweat pouring down my face.
“That was way too much for simple daydreaming….”
“Kaitou. What are you doing?” [Akira]
“Mitsuhara Kaitou-san, please return to your seat at once, you’re disturbing my class.” [Ritsuko-sensei]
“No… no I can’t… If I do, I have a feeling that this will just continue on and on, I need to act now.”
“Sorry, can I go to the nurse’s office? I’m not feeling too well.” [Kaitou]
“…Okay that’s fine. Since you’re not feeling well, do you need anybody to go with you?” [Ritsuko-sensei]
“Time to sort this out, I’ve been wasting my time long enough!”
“Ahh, is it okay if I take Irie-san with me?” [Kaitou]
“Well that should be fine, are you okay with that Irie-san? [Ritsuko-sensei]
“Yes sensei” [Irie]
Irie-san promptly got out of her seat and opened the door. I picked up my bag, slowly moved towards it and left the classroom with her quietly closing said door behind me.
-------------------------------------------------
After we reached the end of the corridor, I stopped.
“So Irie-san, I’d like you to look at something.” [Kaitou]
After a couple of seconds, she was stationary.
“…what is it…?” [Irie]
Receiving a verbal confirmation to continue, I opened my bag and pulled out the notebook I had examined earlier.
Opening the book and turning a couple of pages, I pointed to the page that had her handwriting on it.
“This is yours isn’t it? Why did you write these and what do they mean?” [Kaitou]
She didn’t reply, instead the windows started to vibrate along with the ground shaking as if there was an earthquake.
Then I blinked, and nothing felt different but now I wasn’t in the corridor nor in the nurse’s office, but back in the classroom in my seat as if nothing happened.
“…!?”
“Why?! What happened!”
After a minute of looking around frantically, and confirming that I had returned.
“I need to calm down… Thinking about this again, whenever I talk to someone about anything that seems out of place, weird things start happening.”
“So going off that train of thought, something is trying to stop me from noticing those differences or more like they’re stopping other people from noticing them…? Uhhh, I have no clue if that’s right, there’s too little to draw a conclusion from”
I looked around the classroom, everyone and everything was as it was before.
“At this point there’s no need for restraint, let’s see what happens if I just leave.”
“Sensei, I’m going home.” [Kaitou]
I stood up, picked up my items and walked out of the room as if it was entirely natural.
Everyone was so stunned that no-one said a word, even Ritsuko-sensei, who had dropped the piece of chalk that was in her hand as result of the sudden words, stood there trying to comprehend what had happened.
“That turned out…. Better than expected”
Then after walking for a moment, the ground started shaking again, this time with much greater force, enough to knock me to the ground instantly but it looked to be only affecting me, nothing was shaking beside myself, nothing could be heard either, no loud sounds from the collapsing of any buildings, no screaming, no sounds of falling objects, none of it.
“So the ground’s shaking vigorously but nothing really happened…?”
“Something’s going on here, and whatever that is, it’s working against me in some way.”
After the tremors stopped, I continued, and rushed to leave the school building.
“No visible damage either… What the hell is going on here.”
I started moving, heading home as fast as I could.
-------------------------------------------------
Almost jogging for 10 minutes, I reached the house that I’d lived in my entire life. My home.
“The door really was unlocked?!”
I said before sighing and walking in through the opened door.
Continuing, I headed inside living room, then the kitchen, the bathroom, all over the house, but for what. Nothing looked out of place, then I reached my bedroom.
“…”
“This again…”
I was silent, a portion of the wall had disappeared once again.
“Wait, again?”
Earlier, I had only remembered that Akira was telling me that I was overthinking things, for what I now could recognize as memory erasure or something along those lines, but now I remembered it all, the time I saw this sight this morning, the conversation about my ‘part-time job’, all of it.
This time though what I had seen had shocked my brain into remembering what I needed to remember most, into a realization of the so called ‘bigger picture’.
“So you’ve broken the cycle yourself. Well done. Now, be at peace young one, I shall free you from what ‘reality’ you’ve been living in, and reveal the truth.” [?]
With that I involuntarily closed my eyes and that which bound me was broken.
“This is all fake.” [Kaitou]
-------------- End of Prologue --------------
Author’s Note ―
It’s finally over! The chains on the story, now it can fly away!
…
No! Don’t really fly away, come back, I need to continue writing you…!
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For those who have actually read this far, I really do appreciate it, thank you / arigatou gozaimasu!
I
hope you continue to read my novel, and follow Kaitou's journey.
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Extra Note: Starting from the next chapter, the story will be switching to mainly using third person instead of first person.
E.g. More 'they', 'their', etc over 'I', 'my', and other things.
Also, another note: (I'm sorry, please don't hurt me! I'll stop after this one)
It has come to my attention that the last chapter was fairly low quality compared to the 1st and 2nd ones, sorry about that... (I had an exam near release date). I'll make sure to keep them more interesting in future ^^"
